Living Just Enough For The City

By Keith Boykin, in pop culture
Thursday, May 1 2003, 11:25AM

After an extended weekend retreat in Miami, I remembered why I love New York so much. Sure, we don't have exotic beaches and palm trees and 80 degree weather in the winter, but we do have flavor. People of all ages drive, fly and sail from all corners of the planet just for the opportunity to live, work and struggle with eight million other New Yorkers.

This is why I love New York.

On the train from midtown to Harlem yesterday afternoon, I watched four school girls chatting across the car from me. They were all dressed in white blouses, suggesting that they had come from a private school that required uniforms.

One Latina girl wore a brown jacket over her blouse and powder blue shoes that clashed with her black skirt. The Latina girl next to her had apparently ditched her skirt for a pair of more comfortable blue sweatpants and sneakers, and she had opened her blouse to expose a form-fitting wifebeater that advertised her bosom.

When their conversation trailed off for a minute, the girl with the powder blue shoes leaned over and placed her lips on the lips of her friend. She cocked her head and closed her eyes and the two continued to kiss passionately from 72nd Street to 96th Street.

When I tried to stop myself from staring, I turned to find the other passengers on the train smiling as they watched the scene unfold. There were no critical scowls or awkwardly raised eyebrows. The passengers, male and female, just accepted it. The two girls knew they were safe.

The Big Apple

I am not a New York basher. I have always loved New York. I was a New Yorker long before I ever lived in the city.

I fell in love here in the winter of 1984. On my first trip to New York City as a college freshman, I stared at the Empire State Building, photographed the street signs of Madison Avenue, and marveled at the endless stream of people floating down the boulevards.

I came with my track team to run in the Millrose Games. We stayed at the Southgate Tower Hotel across from Madison Square Garden and ate at Cucina di Pesce, a small Italian restaurant in the East Village. On the advice of my teammates, I stuffed my wallet uncomfortably in my front pocket. We tried to pretend we weren't tourists, but who could miss a rowdy group of 12 young athletes walking around the city wearing Dartmouth jackets?

Actually, we were easy to miss. Although it was our first visit, the native New Yorkers had seen us many times before. We had crowded onto their subways, unloaded from their tour buses, and blocked entrances to buildings for years. New York was new to us, but we were not new to New York.

We were easy to miss because New York gives away what few other cities can give -- privacy and freedom. One of the great ironies of New York is that a city with so little physical space provides so much personal space to its residents. This is a city rich with creativity, opportunity and anonymity.

That's why I moved to New York in the first place. Seventeen years after I fell in love, I finally began my relationship with the City. To the two girls kissing on the subway, thank you for reminding me why I love it here.